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Murdock JE, Shulgin AT. 
“A novel illicit amphetamine laboratory”. 
Microgram. 1978;11:767-773.
Abstract

BACKGROUND: Most of the synthetic procedures which have been popular for the illicit manufacture of amphetamine have required the use of phenyl-2-propanone (phenylacetone, P2P), phenylacetic acid, or esters of phenylacetic acid as the source of the aromatic ring. As a consequence, the presence of any of these materials supports the inference that the preparation of amphetamine or methamphetamine is intended, and conversely, in their absence the documentation of intent is difficult.

In the older chemical literature there is a description of the preparation of 1-phenyl-2-chloropropane (Nenitzescu and Isacescu, Berichte 66 1100 (1933)) and of its conversion to the corresponding amine (Patrick, McBee and Hass, J.A.C.S. 68 1009 (1946)). Although the overall yield of amphetamine by this process is low, the principal reactant is extremely cheap (allyl chloride) and the source of the aromatic ring is innocuous (the solvent, benzene!).

Although some reservation is felt concerning the exhumation of these known procedures from the obscure literature, we feel that the information should be readily available to the criminalistics community. The mere existence of this present case makes the future appearance of a similar problem a real possibility.
Notes # : Thanks to ASRI and Isomer Design
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